The Blade of Darkness
by HelloRaven
Summary: From winged shadows to a mysterious world, a teenager must make sense of it all and ultimately survive as well.
1. Chapter 1

**The Blade of Darkness**

**_-A/N:_**_ My first FanFic. First chapter is an introduction so it's a bit short; others will be longer. Reviews, comments, and constructive criticism welcome. Hope you enjoy.  
_  
Chapter 1  
"Alexander! You get over here this minute, or else..."  
Alex didn't let his mom finish.  
"Coming!" he yelled as he lowered the bar into its cradle and hopped off of his bench press set. Sighing, he grabbed a shirt and slipped it on while sprinting down the stairs.  
His sixteenth birthday having just passed last month, Alex stood at 6'1", with short spiky brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a square jaw. He was well built and muscled from the long hours he spent working out.  
"How many times do I have to tell you to mow the lawn?" Alex's mom raged, "if I have to tell you one more time..."  
"Relax mom. I'm going, alright?"  
Alex stepped outside, the brilliant sunlight blinding him for a moment, and resigned himself to the task at hand.  
Half an hour and a couple chopped up garden snakes later, Alex was done. He was just about to wheel the lawnmower back into the shed when he saw it. A fleeting shadow of what appeared to be a large winged beast passed over the yard blotting out the sun for a second. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.  
Alex squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to clear the hallucination.  
"First otherworldly flying shadows, then what?" he chided himself, "I've been playing too many games, they're getting to my head. I just need more sunlight and exercise, that's all."  
With that, he turned and jogged into the house. His mom was in the kitchen making dinner.  
"Hey Alex, Josh called. He invited you over for dinner at his place."  
Josh was Alex's best friend. They've known each other practically since birth and always hung out together.  
"Oh, cool. I'll go change and then go. See ya mom!" Alex tossed over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs to his room.  
However, his mom wasn't about to let him go that easily.  
"Not so fast young man. If you want to go, you have to promise that you'll clip my rosebushes tomorrow."  
Alex sighed in resignation. "Fine, whatever you say." And with that he was off.  
Ten minutes later Alex was zooming down the street, dodging cars on his bike.  
"I'm sixteen years old and parents still won't let me drive," he grumbled.  
As he screeched to a halt in front of Josh's garage, his friend ran out to meet him.  
"Hey, what the hell took you so long?" Josh frowned in mock anger.  
Rather skinny, with blonde hair and blue eyes, Josh was the complete opposite of Alex.  
"My mom was having a fit because I didn't get some stuff around the house done. You know parents..."  
Josh shrugged, "It's fine bro. Let's go upstairs, I got this awesome new game I want to show you."  
As they walked into the house, the sunlight flickered for a second, as a huge winged shadow once again passed over the yard.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Blade of Darkness**

**_-A/N:_**_ Hello all. Sorry for the wait. I will try to update faster. Here's chapter two. Enjoy._

Chapter 2  
"What the hell? How old is this anyway?" Alex stared skeptically at the 16-bit graphics game.  
"Relax man, it's actually really fun once you get into it," Josh assured him. "The point of the game is to build, explore, and not get killed by monsters; they come out at night. That's why, first of all, you need to build a shelter." he explained while tapping away at keyboard. "Here, you can play on my account for now and if you like it, I'll buy you your own. It will be a late birthday present."  
Alex sat down while Josh kept on chattering, "It's called Minecraft. You move with the W, A, S, D keys. Press E to open your inventory, and ESC to pause the game and bring up the menu."  
A voice coming from somewhere in the house interrupted Josh's lecture.  
"Josh!"  
Josh rolled his eyes, "gotta go, mom's calling. I'll ask Anne to help you get started; she plays Minecraft too."  
"Oh crap," Alex thought, "this is gonna be awkward..."  
Anne was Josh's sister. She was fifteen, a year younger than Josh and Alex, and, in Alex's opinion, very cute. He had a crush on her for as long as he could remember, but could never find the courage to approach her about it.  
"Alright..." Alex said, shifting uncomfortably in the chair and turning towards the monitor as Josh left the room.  
Alex decided to start out from the beginning. He exited to the main menu, selected single player, and clicked 'Create World'. He was then asked to name the new world and select the type of gameplay. Alex chose 'Survival' because it sounded more to his liking. He named it simply, 'New World', and hit the create world button.  
"Switching level, generating level, simulating world for a bit, saving chunks..."  
"Hi Alex!" a cheerful voice from behind him proclaimed making Alex jump. He turned and saw the brunette smiling at him. Her straight hair fell just past her shoulders and her large brown eyes were twinkling  
"Oh...umm...hi Anne..." he mumbled.  
She giggled, "So Josh told me you wanted to learn how to play Minecraft? Great, let's get you started then!" Anne snatched the mouse from his hand and closed the world he just created. "Here, I'll buy you an account. With Josh's money of course." she winked and giggled again. "That way you can play at home by yourself or even on multiplayer with friends."  
"Uh, alright, thanks..." Alex said.  
She opened up a browser, typed in a web address and loaded up the page.  
"Alright," Anne said after a few seconds of tapping and clicking, "now you need to choose a name for your account. Everyone has to have a username."  
"Well..." Alex pondered, "how about Alex74?" He used that username practically everywhere; Alex being his name and 74 his favorite number.  
"Alright, done," Anne said, "now I'll just log you in and then you can start playing. Do you know how to create a world?"  
"Yup," Alex stole the mouse back and went through all the previous steps in creating a world, giving it the same name: New World. As the game loaded, Anne started instructing him, "first thing you want to get is wood. You can acquire it by chopping down trees, however in your case it will be by punching down trees as you don't have any tools yet."  
By this time, the game finished loading and Alex saw that he was in the middle of a field of white blocks. To the right rose first small hills, then large majestic mountains. To his left, a blocky forest spread as far as he could see.  
"Great!" exclaimed Anne, "you've spawned in a tundra biome. You have plenty of wood and, to your right, a great spot for a shelter. Since this is your first day here, I would suggest finding a hill of suitable size and building a small house into it. That way you won't have to construct the whole house from scratch and save valuable time."  
"Alright," Alex agreed.  
"But first you should get some wood," Anne instructed, "walk over to that tree and punch it down."  
Alex did as he was told and was rewarded with six wood blocks.  
"Ok, now punch down a few more trees and then we'll start looking for a spot to set up your temporary base."  
After he successfully demolished three more trees, Anne was finally satisfied.  
"Good, now open up your inventory and place the wooden blocks into one of the crafting squares. This gives you wooden planks which you can make your first set of tools with."  
After converting all of the wood into planks and, with Anne's help, crafting quite a few sticks and a crafting table as well, he was instructed on how to make tools. Alex soon had a wooden pickaxe and a wooden sword.  
"You don't need to waste time and resources on making other tools out of wood because with our wooden pick you will soon mine cobblestone and make better tools from it," Anne explained.  
By this time, the sun had reached the peak of it's journey across the sky and started slowly moving towards the other end of the horizon.  
Anne pointed this out to Alex. "See how the sun is starting to set? It will be night soon, and you don't want to be caught outside after dark, especially not on your first day. Let's go find you a suitable shelter."  
After a bit of walking around, they found a relatively large cliff. Anne instructed Alex to hollow out a three-by-three room inside. He place his crafting table in the corner and, following Anne's instructions, crafted a complete set of stone tools, a stone sword, and even a furnace. By this time the sun had almost set and darkness was closing in.  
"Well it's almost night outside," Anne stated, "too bad you didn't find any coal. Now you'll just have to hope that no monsters will spawn in your house," she said with a smirk.  
Alex shivered at the thought.  
Anne then proceeded to show him how to make a wooden door and a chest. After a while she stood up.  
"Well I'm going to go downstairs and grab myself something to eat," Anne said. "You can expand your house or start a mineshaft, just don't go outside until daylight if you don't want to die."  
Alex just nodded, absorbed in making a second room. He was in luck. As he was expanding the new room, which he decided would be the bedroom, he noticed a block which differed from the normal stone ones.  
"That must be coal!" he thought excitedly to himself.  
He mined all of it and was rewarded with eight pieces of coal. Alex decided he didn't need Anne's help to figure out how to craft torches. It seemed simple enough so he opened up his inventory and placed a piece of coal over a stick. It worked! He used up the rest of the coal for torches, resulting in a total of thirty-two. After placing them around his humble abode, he felt much more confident.  
Ignoring Anne's warning, Alex decided to take a look outside. He opened the wooden door and froze. There, at the very fringe of the forest, stood a tall, lank, dark figure. The bottomless, purple eyes stared at him. Suddenly a moaning voice sounded inside his head.  
"Welcome Alexander. We have been waiting for you."  
Alex whirled around, almost certain it was one of Josh's silly pranks. There was no one there. The room and even the hallway were empty. Alex turned back to the screen in disbelief. And then, the terrifying apparition grinned at him.  
Alex shot out of the chair as if it was on fire.  
"Dear Lord, I'm losing my mind," he gasped.  
He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples.  
"Ok, alright, get yourself together Alexander," he told himself.  
Alex decided the most sensible thing to do would be to go get someone. If the other saw what he saw, that would either mean that he is normal or that they're both insane. Comforting thought...  
That person turned out to be Anne. She was just walking up the stairs when Alex stumbled out of the room.  
"Hey Anne," Alex started in an unsteady voice, "would you mind helping out with something really fast?"  
Anne gave him a somewhat surprised glance. "Of course," she agreed.  
They entered the room and instantly froze, their jaws hanging wide open, horrified and uncomprehending. The computer was smoking. Sizzling and popping noises could be heard from inside. But what appalled the teenagers the most was the most horrifying part of the nightmarish scene. The power cord was severed in half. And not simply cut; teeth marks could be easily identified on the two jagged ends of the cord.  
Suddenly the screen flashed on. The same hypnotizing, rectangular, purple eyes stared at them for a moment. Then the lights went out. A horrifying, throbbing moan echoed all around them. Anne screamed. Alex cursed. Then everything went black.


End file.
